December, 17 2014, 01:00pm EDT
Pipeline Construction Under Lake Thunderbird Sparks Rally
Concerned Residents Rally for Clean Water and Policy Change
NORMAN, OK.
The Central Oklahoma Clean Water Coalition is inviting area residents to attend a public rally for clean water outside Norman City Hall on December 18th beginning at 4:30pm. Coalition leaders will rally and address a city council meeting demanding that policies and regulations be put in place to protect city water sources and more fully involve the public in decision making processes. The Our Water Rally will be a peaceful public gathering of concerned residents who share the common goal of protecting water resources, air quality, and land from the hazards of oil and gas development.
Lake Thunderbird, the Garber-Wellington aquifer, and the Little River watershed supply drinking water to hundreds of thousands of residents in the central Oklahoma region--including the Absentee Shawnee tribe and metro-area cities such as Moore, Noble, Norman, and Midwest City. Currently, the policies in place do not protect these important water resources. The city of Norman has permitted a new 24 inch pipeline that will transport crude oil under Lake Thunderbird. The new pipeline will run adjacent to and replace an existing pipeline in hopes of both creating an updated pipeline system and allowing for increased crude oil production. However, citizens have argued that rerouting the pipeline would better protect water resources. Organizers say that permits were granted without proper public notice or due diligence.
Plains All American Pipeline LP, the company responsible for constructing the pipeline, spilled 19,000 gallons of crude oil into an urban area of Los Angeles in May of 2014. If a similar incident were to happen in Oklahoma, it would be devastating to wildlife, affect access to clean drinking water, and it could possibly render portions of the lake permanently damaged and untreatable.
Some coalition members say Norman should stop issuing such permits until new regulations are in place that address the changing landscape of oil and gas practices. Regardless of new drilling methods, heightened numbers of spills, and research suggesting potentially dangerous links between oil & gas practices and water pollution, new permits are still being issued and new wells are being drilled. Meanwhile no policies are in place in Norman that require pre-testing of water pollutants near proposed drilling sites, making it impossible to fully assess the impact that oil and gas has on our water resources.
Speakers at the Our Water Rally include Jesse Robbins (Red Eagle) indigenous activist, hip hop artist, and poet, Alecia Onzawah, member of Absentee Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma and Idle No More Central Oklahoma organizer, and Angela Spotts, prominent anti-fracking activist and founding member of Stop Fracking Payne County.
Concerned citizens and organizers will assemble at 4:30 at the corner of Gray St and Santa Fe in front of the Norman City Hall. The Central Oklahoma Clean Water Coalition is calling for changes in regulatory practices to ensure that both public notification and protection of water resources are considered in the future.
The Central Oklahoma Clean Water Coalition is a broad-based grassroots group that includes members from state & local environmental groups and concerned area residents, all of whom share a common interest in protecting our land and public water sources from the damage caused by irresponsible policies and practices.
Sponsors of the rally include Sierra Club - Red Earth Group, Great Plains Tar Sands Resistance, Sooner Utilities, Stop Fracking Payne County, OUr Earth, Idle No More - Central Oklahoma, Grand Riverkeeper/Lead Agency, S.P.I.R.I.T. Society to Protect Indigenous Rights & Indigenous Treaties, Clean Energy Future OK, Oklahoma Sierra Club, Center for Conscience in Action, Green Party of Oklahoma, and the Oklahoma IWW
Great Plains Tar Sands Resistance is a coalition of Great Plains organizations and individuals dedicated to using direct action to stop tar sands extraction and transportation infrastructure, like the Keystone XL pipeline, in the beautiful heartland of North America.
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After Bank Collapses, US Regulators Urged to Impose Rules on Climate-Related Financial Risk
"If management at a wide swath of banks failed to properly address a well-understood risk, they cannot be trusted to independently address other complex emerging risks," argued 50 green groups.
Mar 28, 2023
In the wake of recent bank collapses and protests across the United States demanding financial institutions end fossil fuel financing, 50 climate, environmental justice, and Indigenous rights groups on Tuesday advocated for new regulations.
"We the undersigned strongly urge financial regulators and Congress to learn from the collapse and bailout of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) and rapidly implement new regulations to mitigate against climate-related financial risk," the coalition wrote.
"Climate-related risks are moving us toward a financial crisis. But regulators have not taken adequate steps to actually mitigate those risks."
The groups' letter was sent to key leaders at the U.S. Treasury Department, Federal Reserve, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), National Economic Council, and relevant U.S. House and Senate committees.
After explaining how the SVB collapse is partly the result of poor management enabled by regulatory rollbacks under the Trump administration, the letter states that "this is only the latest example of a bank being wholly unprepared for a large and obvious financial risk."
The letter continues:
It is a stark reminder of the chaos that can unfold when a financial institution has high exposure to a risky industry, and of the fact that the leaders of major financial institutions are frequently far more concerned with their short-term gains than with robust risk management measures that ensure their safety and the safety and soundness of the financial system. As a reminder of the latter, senior managers at SVB paid themselves millions in bonuses hours before their bank failed and the federal government financially backstopped it. Here again, stronger rules—including the Dodd-Frank executive compensation rules that remain unfinished—could have incentivized greater bank attention to risks.
To prevent any potential for a cascade of bank runs after SVB's collapse, federal regulators have now effectively set a precedent of guaranteeing all bank deposits in all banking institutions nationwide, to be backstopped by the Federal Deposit Insurance Fund and then taxpayer dollars. Moreover, the Federal Reserve has begun lending at extraordinarily generous terms to any other banks with assets whose real value has been curbed by interest rate hikes—in effect, the Fed is offering a first-of-its-kind, get-out-of-bank-failure-free card to any firms that made the same foreseeable mistake as SVB. Regulators justified this extraordinary shift in the structures of American finance by relying on emergency rules in place to prevent systemic risk to the financial system. In effect, regulators argued that SVB's inability to mitigate one of the most obvious forms of financial risk—the potential for rising interest rates amid high inflation—constituted a grave risk to the whole financial system, and, thereby, the whole economy.
"If management at a wide swath of banks failed to properly address a well-understood risk, they cannot be trusted to independently address other complex emerging risks," the groups argued. "Regulators must intervene to protect the financial system from risks associated with climate change and the ongoing transition to a green economy."
The letter notes recent remarks from Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen about the economic and financial impact of the climate emergency as well as how, as it worsens, "banks of all sizes holding mortgage-backed bonds will see their assets drop in value" while "banks invested in the fossil fuel industry will eventually be saddled with stranded assets."
"Climate-related risks are moving us toward a financial crisis. But regulators have not taken adequate steps to actually mitigate those risks," the coalition warned, calling on U.S. policymakers to:
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- Please also see previous coalition letters recommending action on the Federal Reserve's and the Treasury Department's climate guidance.
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Signatories include Greenpeace USA, Lakota People's Law Project, Sierra Club, and Third Act—who came together earlier this month for a "Stop Dirty Banks" national day of action, the first elderly-led mass climate demonstration in U.S. history.
"Today is a major drive to take the cash out of carbon," declared Third Act's Bill McKibben. "We want JPMorgan Chase, Citi, Wells Fargo, and Bank of America to hear the voices of the older generation which has the money and structural power to face down their empty, weasel words on climate. We will not go to our graves quietly knowing that the financial institutions in our own communities continue to fund the climate crisis."
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A coalition of Democratic U.S. lawmakers led by Reps. Cori Bush and Ayanna Pressley on Tuesday announced the launch of a new caucus aimed at realizing the centurylong goal of adding an Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution.
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Pressley (D-Mass.) said: "I am proud to launch the ERA Caucus with my sister-in-service Congresswoman Bush to affirm the Equal Rights Amendment as the 28th Amendment to the Constitution, establish gender equality as a national priority, and center our most vulnerable and marginalized communities, who stand to benefit the most."
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Caucus member Rep. Summer Lee (D-Penn.) said that "it's not shocking that when the Constitution was first drafted, women, Black, Brown, queer, and marginalized folks were intentionally written out. What is shocking is that in 2023, our Constitution still does not include equal rights regardless of sex—meaning our Constitution still does not reflect or protect all people."
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After passing the House in 1971 and the Senate the following year, the ERA was submitted to the states for ratification. Congress set a March 1979 deadline for ratification; only 35 of the requisite 38 states approved the proposal by that time. Although the deadline was extended until 1982, no more states ratified the amendment and several state legislatures voted to rescind their ratifications.
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A 21st-century effort to revive the ERA saw Nevada, Illinois, and Virginia approve the measure in recent years. Supporters say 38 states have now backed the ERA, although there is uncertainty over the expired deadlines and rescinded ratifications.
Pressley's office said that in addition to affirming the ERA, the new congressional caucus will "raise awareness in Congress to establish constitutional gender equality as a national priority; partner with an inclusive intergenerational, multiracial coalition of advocates, activists, scholars, organizers, and public figures; and center the people who stand to benefit the most from gender equality, including Black and Brown women, LGBTQ+ people, people seeking abortion care, and other marginalized groups."
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Climate and consumer advocates on Tuesday hailed California lawmakers' passage of legislation aimed at tackling Big Oil price gouging as the proposal headed to the desk of Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, who said he will sign the measure into law.
The California Assembly voted 52-19 on Monday in favor of S.B. X1-2—authored by state Sen. Nancy Skinner (D-9)—which will empower the California Energy Commission (CEC) to impose profit caps and penalties on refiners and create an intra-agency watchdog tasked with conducting greater oversight of fossil fuel companies to minimize profiteering.
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The law will take effect 90 days after it's signed by Newsom—who has also called for a windfall profits tax on fossil fuel companies.
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Kassie Siegel, director of the Center for Biological Diversity's Climate Law Institute, asserted that Monday's vote "shows the tide is turning against Big Oil in California."
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